A microfiche appendix comprised of a single microfiche having 92 frames was included with the application for this patent.
This invention pretains to insertion machines, and particularly to insertion machines of a type wherein a plurality of insert stations are positioned proximate a conveyor means travelling therealong for selectively feeding inserts onto the conveyor means.
Inserter machines such as that disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 2,325,455 to A. H. Williams are the well known Phillipsburg inserters. These inserters effect the removal and/or collation of document-type pieces of mail and like material from one or more stacks, insertion of the same into envelopes, and sealing, stamping and stacking the envelopes ready for mailing. This is accomplished in a high speed, continuous, automatic fashion by withdrawing stacked inserts from one or more insert stations located alongside an insert transportation mechanism, generally referred to as an insert track, comprising a conveyor which is intermittently advanced in timed relation to oscillating gripper arm means, having jaw structure, which successively remove the inserts from the stack in the magazine structure at each insert station and deposit the withdrawn inserts onto the conveyor of the insert track. The inserts eventually arrive at an inserting station where they are stuffed into the envelopes.
Heretofore the envelopes into which inserts were stuffed by insertion machines had addresses printed thereon at a location remote from the insertion machine main frame structure. Various types of printers, including ink jet printers, have been used to address envelopes supplied to the printer from an envelope hopper. The printed envelopes were discharged into an output bin from which they could be manually collected for eventual manual loading into an appropriate envelope hopper or the like on the main frame of the insertion machine.
It has been known in the prior art to obtain from magnetic tape the information necessary for printing addresses on envelopes. In this manner a plurality of envelopes are addressed by suitable printing means in accordance with information acquired from a corresponding plurality of address records physically coded on the magnetic tape. Each address record includes in specified format a sequence number indicative of the particular customer whose address information is stored in the address record. In certain embodiments such printers which interface with tape drives have logic circuits and a keyboard operative therewith. If, in such embodiments, it is desired to print an envelope for a particular customer, the customer's sequence number can be entered via the keyboard to enable the printer logic to physically locate on the tape the appropriate address record and to print an envelope for the customer.
On very rare occasions insertion machines have been known to jam, particularly at a station wherein inserts are stuffed into an envelope. The jam may cause an envelope to be mutilated, in which case it is necessary to prepare another addressed envelope. In certain instances new envelopes can be prepared using the prior art keyboard-type printer embodiments described above. Yet while prior art printer systems which use tape input were able to search downstream for a customer's address record in response to a keyed-in sequence number, such systems were unable to search back upstream unless the entire tape were rewound. Rewinding the tape and searching ab initio for the customer's sequence number consumed time, particularly when a sizeable address list was being processed. Moreover, even in cases in which a new envelope were printed in place of a damaged envelope and manually introduced into the insertion machine, the new envelope as it travelled down the insert track would be out of order rather than being in the position of the old envelope. In most insertion machine applications the ordering of envelopes is important, particularly when envelopes are being grouped according to zip code in order to take advantage of lower postal rates.
Insertion machine systems of the prior art, even those in which customer address records are stored on magnetic tape or the like, do not possess an effective capability of searching through a customer list in search of all customer records having particular information other than customer sequence number included therein, such as, for example, all customers having a certain zip code, or a certain city, state, or street address, or even a particular corporate affiliation.
Therefore, an object of this invention is the provision of an insertion machine wherein printed envelopes are automatically transported from a printer to an envelope track of an insertion machine.
An advantage of the present invention is the provision of an insertion machine system and method wherein information indicative of insertion machine control signals or instructions are coded on storage medium for use in operating the insertion machine.
A further advantage of the present invention is the provision of an insertion machine system and method wherein information indicative of insertion machine control signals or instructions are printed on envelopes.
Yet another advantage of the present invention is the provision of an insertion machine system wherein machine jams can be easily rectified by the rapid printing of new envelopes.
Still another advantage of the present invention is the provision of means for indicating the zip code relationship of reprinted envelopes to other envelopes travelling on conveyor means of an insertion machine system.
Another advantage of the invention is the provision of an insertion machine system capable of searching through customer address records to locate customer records having information stored therein which matches information sought by an operator.